The Mets are in agreement with veteran outfielder Mike Tauchman on a minor league contract, report Ken Rosenthal and Will Sammon of The Athletic. The Meister Sports Management client will be in camp as a non-roster invitee once he completes a physical.
It’s a good landing spot for Tauchman, who has a path to breaking camp. The Mets are moving Juan Soto to left field and have Luis Robert Jr. in center. That leaves right field as the biggest question going into the season. New York signed former Royals outfielder MJ Melendez last week. He’s on the 40-man roster but has a minor league option remaining. Melendez signed a split contract that’d pay him at a lower rate for time spent in Triple-A. He’s hardly a lock to make the team.
Tauchman’s biggest competition probably comes from top prospect Carson Benge. The door is open for the 23-year-old, whom most scouts consider the top position player in the system. Benge, a first-round pick in 2024, raked at both the High-A and Double-A levels last year. He didn’t have good numbers in his first 24 Triple-A contests, slashing .188/.272/.311 there to close the year. That’d point toward him beginning this season in the minors. However, Benge’s 18% strikeout rate and 92 mph average exit velocity against Triple-A pitching suggest the results may have simply been bad luck rather than any kind of speed bump.
Benge’s play in Spring Training might be a bigger factor in whether Tauchman makes the team than how well the veteran outfielder performs. The Mets don’t have many bench spots available. Tyrone Taylor is locked into the fourth outfield role, while Mark Vientos will be on the MLB roster barring a surprise trade. Backup catcher Luis Torrens has a third bench spot secure, and they’ll likely want a depth infielder who can play shortstop regardless of whether Francisco Lindor returns from a hamate injury by Opening Day. Vidal Bruján and Ronny Mauricio are the top competitors for that job.
The Mets have a good idea of what to expect from Tauchman if he breaks camp. He’s a high-OBP corner outfielder who has been a little better than average at the plate in three consecutive seasons. The lefty hitter is coming off a .263/.356/.400 showing with nine home runs across 385 plate appearances for the White Sox. Teams have viewed him more as a quality depth piece than a roster fixture, and he has been non-tendered by the Cubs and White Sox over the past two offseasons.
Surprised he had to settle for a minor league deal. He’s probably a shoe in to make the roster though.
For someone who has had at least league average stats over the last three years, only getting a minor league contract is surprising. He would have been an upgrade for the Angels in right field (or wherever Soler is supposed to play)
Every team outside of Chicago hates this guy. Guys been a bargain every year. Such a obvious sign and teams pass. He’s nearing the could decline and be out of mlb age but a mlb deal with a few million bet couldn’t be a bad one. At worse you lost a few million. Mets did epically well here.
Savant has him decidedly slowing down. Both in foot speed and in bat speed. He managed to put up good numbers despite that . But those are serious red flags of decline.
Bat speed is up from 2023.
Or 2024. One of them.
Good egg but tendency to fall down on the basepaths – happened like 3 times last year rounding third. Dead to rights at home plate
Good catch. 12h percentile is better than 10th percentile. Still sub 70 mph though
Not ideal but at least he isn’t rapidly declining! And hopefully you ain’t signing him to hit a lot hrs.
His track record is pretty scant. Kinda like Harrison Bader who was just OK for his whole career, then 90 days of productive hustle at the end of last year and he’s a free agent darling.
The Mets are clearly trying to duplicate The Dodger Way. Scooping up every available player is a good thing for them, though they seem to be working the bargain racks for the most part. We’ll see how they manage the roster over the year. I could see the players with less playing time available as trade tokens in July. So crazy it might work.
This guy could be a steal. I loved his time with the Cubs and hated they let him go. His stats don’t show it, but he’s a gamer and doesn’t wilt in big moments.
Another Yankee
Likely just for roster management until they open up a 40-man and 26-man spot. He’ll either be on the MLB roster come Opening Day and allowed to move on.
He might be a shoe in for a lot of playing time if Benge doesn’t make the MLB club out of camp.
rct: you also should put your shoe back on.
haha, I thoughtlessly copied noquarter. Whoops!
Good player
Yeah thats why he signed in the middle of Feb. rolls eye’s
@noquarter: It’s spelled “shoo-in.” The expression has nothing to do with footwear.
No need to lace into the guy
Thanks nerd 🤓
noquarter: Put your shoe back on. It’s shoo-in. Besides, he’s not a shoo-in to make the roster.
A shoo-in as opposed to a shoo-out??
Tauchman’s respectable-looking 2025 was considerably assisted by a ,328 BABIP. His Statcast for hitting is mostly blue.
Still, that there wasn’t a guaranteed $2-3m deal out there for him as a 3rd-4th OFer on a team like the Pirates or the W Sox is odd. Even a replacement level player like Amed Rosario is making $2.5m + 250k incentives for 2026.
The market for mid-30s players coming off of lucky seasons is not good.
I really thought he would get a better deal than Castellanos.
Tauchman is 35+ years old. He’s reached Jake Taylor status when it comes to playing baseball: “here’s to one more good year in the sun.”
Dana Brown. What the F is wrong with you? Couldn’t get him on a minor league deal. You suck!
There’s a reason this dude is getting a minor league deal. Halfway thru February. He just ain’t that good.
He’s a league average hitter. Actually slightly above. He was worth 2 bWAR in like 400 PA’s last year. That’s, like, good good, not just sort of good. Very weird. Maybe one of those circumstances where he had personal or family reasons to be in a certain place and just waited until he got something from a certain team. Cuz yeah, Houston’s been screaming about left handed outfielders all off-season. They ain’t doin better than Tauch.
I don’t care what the computers say. Dude just isn’t that valuable at his age.
@Seamaholic – Houston could have had Jarren Duran if they didn’t overvalue Parades so much. A player like Duran easily returns a Parades and a Top 10 prospect in the system but Houston didn’t want to part with any decent minor league player.
@Enjoy
Such a weird thing to say. He’s on a 1 year deal, Cam hit righties and play an ok OF defensive position. According to fangraphs, among all hitters that had at least 350 PA he was better than about 35 of them. Don’t go buy age but by performance. Getting 1.5 WAR from a back up is good.
We had part of a slinky. But I straightened it.
@Enjoy sack lunch Tell me you don’t know anything without telling me you don’t know anything.
@Sack Lunch: No need for a computer. You can just look at pure OPS if you want. League average was .719. Tauchman had a .756. Any team with offensive concerns should have been in on Tauchman, especially if he needed to settle for a minor league deal.
Is he really any better than Zach Cole or Joey Loperfido? I don’t think so.
Yes. Regardless, it’s good to have depth. All those guys you mentioned still have minor league options. Tauchman was the best LH OF still on the market. I’d still look out for Michael Conforto & Jesse Winker…but Tauchman was the one I really wanted in Houston.
1.5M in MLB and pays him $800K in minors for Conforto on a split deal? If we get Winker on a deal, it should be a MiLB deal to annoy the Mariners
Yes! I would definitely sign both now that Tauchman is off the board. Can get both for pennies & hope that they each bounce back to their very good form in ‘24. Both were very productive in 2024.
Chazzy: what does Conforto need to do to show you that he’s got nothing left?
He showed me a lot in 2024. For a potential bounce back season, he’s worth a low cost flier.
Much.
Excellent. Ive been wondering/waiting for them to sign a serviceable OFer.
Low key good move by Stearns
Light hitting, little speed, average at best defense, and spent a year in Korea in 2022/23. Nice depth move at could be a nice 5th OFer
Dude he had 3 WAR/600 last year on a 112 OPS+. He’s not light hitting.
His EV is 89 mph. Judge is 98 mph EV. I would say Tauchman is a light hitting OF. Doesn’t hit much home runs either. His hard contact is like 38% last year. If you think he is more than what meets the eye, please explain. Most HRs he hit in a single season was like 5 years ago and had 17 on the year.
Really? Does anyone look that great when compared to Judge? I don’t think anyone is thinking he’s a top 3 bat. Now try comparing him to 4-5 OFs.
But what does he do?
He buys time for the development of Carson Benge.
“Do you want me to speak?” “When I point at you, yeah.”
Perfect placeholder
His old coach Mendy doing him a favor so he can show what he’s got left. He may have an opt out if he doesn’t make the team out of Spring Training, or he could choose to go to AAA and see if anyone gets hurt. They can make room for him on the 40, not sure about the 26 without an injury to an OF. A decent depth pickup.
Probably has opt out.
“More to come.”
I’m good.
Just write the title and we will take care of the rest.
Solid move. Really underrated.
What’s the affinity to this guy? It’s cultish. He’s toast and he was never any good.
He gets on base
Gets on base, solid contact, watching him every day, you can see hes just a professional hitter, not a ton of power but he can get into one from time to time
This ^
That eye with slightly below average defense… I don’t think highly of Stearns, but this looks like a nice little move.
His .359 OBP over the past three seasons is 21st in all of MLB.
He hit better than average the last 3 years and can give you average glove work in the outfield, seems like a good stopgap for the outfield if benge doesn’t work out. All for a minor league deal? Seems like a steal
Or the super highly unlikely scenario Robert goes on IL.
We all know that will never happen…
He and Robert are reunited, and it feels so good.
@ wade
Loading up on former white Sox players. Should have been Twins strategy maybe.
@Samtman Noop. Normalize his 2025 stats for luck and he was not quite a league average hitter. Project him at 35, he figures to put up a 93 OPS+ in 2026 with slightly below average defense.
Statcast has him as average in 2025. Old players are not notorious for keeping their skills year to year. He figures to be in the -3 to -5 OAA range this season.
Still, occasionally 35 year olds keep it going for another year. If he can, only then is he likely to make a team with postseason dreams.
You wouldn’t be happy with 93 OPS+ from a player on a minor league deal?
A+ steal to have this for minor league depth.
Tauchman is definitely in that class of player who is treated as Quadruple-A, but tends to provide enough that he’s far more on the major league side of that label.
.740 OPS and .359 OBP the past three seasons and this is all he could get? Needs to find a new agent.
Dave-O at it again.
Hope he makes the team or gets on with someone else. Dude won at least 3 games with his glove when he was with the Giants in 2021
Somewhere the dude who thinks Travis Jankowski is better than Soto is curled up in a ball crying.
I get what you are saying…but I always feel bad whenever people pile on Jank bc he keeps trying to cling to an mlb job (a few people from my (and his) hometown understand why he won’t walk away). There’s lots of reasons sometimes that players do this, and not always bc they can’t let go of the glory days
Because the Mets signed him we’re going to get 500 responses from 5 Mets fans.
How dare met fans make comments on a thread about their team. For shame.
I am just waiting for Red Sox guys to take over somehow. This thread needs to be about Devers!
Right, I mean what a heinous atrocity. Mets fans making comments on a Mets thread.
You didn’t read what I said. 500 post from the same 5 people.
I read exactly what you said. Who cares? Are you in charge around here? Are you even a Met fan? You seem extremely petty.
Dolemite: it’s better than another hundred comments on Nick Castellanos.
Yeah we should comment on stories about the Cardinals?
He’s really slow out there in the outfield. Watched enough of him this past year (when he was actually able to stay healthy).
Depth is good.
He’s going to be on the mlb roster most if not all year great guy good pickup
This saddens me😥 White Sox Legend!
Like him 10x more than Tyrod Taylor!!!
They do different things. Taylor is a defensive-minded player who sometimes won’t embarrass himself at the plate and will be a pest on the base paths. Tauchman is more likely to get on base, but doesn’t have the glove or speed of Taylor.
If Benge isn’t ready, I can see both of them on the 26-man roster. If he is, I wonder if they can stash Tauchman in Triple-A until someone gets injured.
I believe he qualifies for the automatic opt-outs given to veterans who ended the season on a major league roster and are now signed to minor league deals. So stashing him seems unlikely. That said, I doubt Benge is ready by the end of spring. Only 24 games in AAA, and he didn’t even hit well in those. Give him a couple of months in AAA to start the season. In the meanwhile, Tauch and Melendez get extended auditions for the team sorts out which one to keep whenever Benge does arrive.
Yeah, I’m surprised he didn’t get a major league deal. But, maybe he preferred a minor league deal where he had a realistic pathway to regular playing time, rather than a major league deal where he’s viewed as a fourth outfielder. Definitely wish him the best.
No fair, not fair at all to you Mike Tuchman. He was the best player on the whitesox last year. How does someone this good not get a major league contract. What am I missing? Great clubhouse guy, good hitter and a leader. Tauchman if you are reading this keep your head up and keep raking. Go get it.
Bradley Braves alum, second best player out of BU behind Twins legend Kirby Puckett.